The industry commonly accepts that information from actual drilling, completion and work-over operations should play an important role in the analysis of performance, comparison against plans, optimisation of future operations, and operational safety. It also expects that considerable operational savings would come from the effective use of such information.

In many cases, however, companies cannot experience these gains, even when using sophisticated reporting systems and software tools. Basically this is so because of inappropriate information management processes. For example, sometimes companies do not store planning information in their databases and, thus, cannot compare planned vs. actual. In other cases, even when planning information is kept, it is difficult to match them with actual operations. Most commonly, the operations are not identified or coded properly, making it impractical for the user to perform any reasonable analysis.

This paper describes a new methodology and its practical implementation, which allows for the realisation of all the benefits that reliable data can entail. The basis of the process is the report on planning concept, which changes the current reporting paradigm used by the industry. In this process, the source of operational information shifts from the rig site to the planning office. In addition, the process requires a detailed design of the operational sequences, levels of granularity, and operational code standards.